Feature Cars

Hidden Agenda – Volvo Duo

Volvo and performance aren't words that spring to mind together, but when they make one, the results are spectacular.

I may have mentioned this before, but some things are just a slow burn. Pickled herring for breakfast is a good example. Sounds weird to a nation raised on Sugar Pops, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

Then there was that moment you finally realised that it was the brunette in ABBA that was the real looker all along? And Volvo station-wagons. How cool are they now (especially if they’re crammed full of turbo-motor)?

And you know what all those things have in common? Yep, they’re all the work of those crazy Scandies; Sweden, specifically; the same mob that brought you flat-pack furniture, Spotify and the three-point seat-belt.

It’s probably fair to suggest that pickled herring is yet to conquer the world, and that ABBA’s peak powers were some decades ago. But the Volvo wagon? That’s a concept that still works for us even if it probably reached peak cool back in the 1990s.

Coolest looking wagon of the time. Tick.

Okay, so Volvo wagons have always been the coolest versions of whatever platform the brand was flogging at the time. The combination of superb practicality and, er, somewhat homely looks, gave rise to the slightly perverse view that a Volvo with five doors was superior to one with four. I mean, if it isn’t going to look sporty in four-door form, why not add another door and fit a chest-freezer in? Exactly.

But the idea of a truly sporty Volvo wagon came along after Volvo went all crazy on us and developed the front-wheel-drive 850 platform with a novel five-cylinder engine option.

Funny thing is, even though the engineers took the whole Volvo brand down a new path with turbocharging the five-pot and the tail-dragging chassis, the stylists dug their heels in and persisted with the wardrobe-on-its-back design language of earlier times.

Which means, of course, that it was still okay to list the five-door as your fave Volvo, and not even the introduction of the speedy 850 T-5 in late 1993 could change that, mainly because Volvo wisely decided to add a station-wagon version of the hot-shot newcomer to the range from the word go.

Tall and round, or flat and squat. Take your pick as both are brilliant.

That 2.4-litre turbocharged five-cylinder really set the scene for what was to come, but even back then had jaws dropping with its 20-valve engine accounting for 166kW of power and a neat 300Nm of torque. You could have a four-speed auto T-5, but even better was the five-speed manual, even if it amplified the boost fall-off between cogs.

The other philosophical change at Volvo around the same time was the abandonment of any awareness of the concept of ride quality. All 850s were firm, but the T-5 was outright harsh in the way it was sprung. Sure as hell
went around corners like no previous Volvo, though.

Although it seems a bit anti-intuitive, the five-cylinder engine used in these high-boost applications was actually reduced in size a fraction (down from 2435cc to 2319cc).

That was achieved by reducing the bore by 2mm, mainly in the name of arriving at a slightly thicker cylinder wall to cope with the extra boost (as many home-tuners who have turned up the wick on a Volvo five-cylinder learned the hard way, split cylinder bores are not unknown).

Five cylinders, DOHC, turbo. Nuff said.

Next was the Porsche joint-development project that became known as the T-5R which added more boost to the five-cylinder mill for an extra 11kW and 30Nm.

Now, the Swedes might seem a bit of a demure bunch (although the ABBA gals’ mini-skirts suggest different) but they know a good thing when they see it. Or when they build it. So, by 1996, it was time to up the ante a bit and turn the T-5 in to the 850R with even more performance.

Which brings us to the red car you see before you. Owner Guy is an ex-pat Brit who clearly has a thing for European cars (based on his current garage inhabitants). He found the 850R lurking around in the outback near the South Australian mining town of Roxby Downs where it had been through a few hands, including the seller’s at least twice.

The paint had faded to pink in the outback sun, it needed a heap of work and every piece of rubber was perished. But Guy didn’t stop at simply putting the wrongs right, he also rebuilt the car from one end to the other with a brake upgrade (the standard brakes are scarily bad, he reckons) a full suspension rebuild and even new engine mounts.

While he had the spanners out, Guy also changed the stock 16T turbo to an 18T for a bit more boost, fitted bigger injectors and switched the ignition to a coil-on-plug set-up.

He also switched the five-speed manual for a six-speed. And where would you get a six-speed to fit the Volvo engine? From a Ford Focus XR5 Turbo, of course, which borrowed the Volvo engine as part of the Ford buy-out of the Swedish brand back in 1999.

“The swap is a really good one,” says Guy. “The six-speed has the same first and top-gear ratios as the five-speed, so it closes all the gaps up. Also, you get to use the Ford clutch assembly, which is handy because the Volvo clutch kit is no longer available.”

Meantime, the years rolled by and while Volvo kept its hand in with hot wagons like the V70 R wagon that followed the 850R, the brand was increasingly drawn to SUVs and the profits they generated. But, finally, in 2014, Volvo gave us the spiritual successor to the 850R, the V60 Polestar.

Post 2013 models, S60/V60 Polestars were treated with nubuck interiors, and contrasting blue stitching.

Under the lid was pretty much the final iteration of Volvo’s inline six (before it was replaced by the twin-charged two-litre four-cylinder in subsequent Polestars) and it was a ripper. The turbo managed to squeeze 258kW out of the three-litre block as well as a full 500Nm.

Like the 850R, the engine was mounted east-west but, unlike the earlier car, the platform now ran to all-wheel drive which, given the outputs, was probably a darn good idea. But missing from the original formula was the option of a manual gearbox (the Polestar was a paddle-shifted six-speed auto or nothing).

Also missing was the Jenny Craig sticker on the window and, while the 850R tipped the scales at just on 1400kg, the Polestar was a deal porkier at the wrong side of 1800 kegs.

Lord, but it went hard, though, and with a 0-100 time of just about five seconds, it was well quicker than a stock 850R which could make the same journey in about 6.7 ticks of your Timex.

The ultimate family sleepers.

The black car on these pages is owned by Martin, a fella who’s owned four or five (he can’t remember) of this series Volvos and has finally worked his way up the ladder to a Polestar V60. So he must like them then?

“I like the style and the uniqueness; there’s not many of them out there. Also they were the last of the  straight-six engine. I’ve been working my way through different ones to get to the one I’ve always wanted. Before this, I had an S60. But I’m a wagon person; they’re just so much more practical.”

Martin has resisted the urge to modify his car, but that may not be the case forever.

“I’ve bought a tuning kit (but I haven’t fitted it yet) and I might do a speaker upgrade. But I won’t change anything that alters the essence or the appearance of the car.”

And what does he think about the dynamics?

“It’s definitely got a lot of weight over the front wheels and, if you wanted a sports car, you wouldn’t buy this. But it’s a great sleeper. People just don’t expect it to do 0 to 100 in 4.9 seconds.”

So, the Polestar must take the chocolates here for sheer speed. But, if anything, we kind of missed the boxy honesty of the 850-series hot bricks.

The tilt-slab styling might not stack up against conventionally beautifully automotive designs, but when you saw and heard what the 850R could do, that slow burn thing we were talking about suddenly started to really sizzle. Just like the brunette in the short skirt banging out the best sellers.

VITAL STATS

2015 VOLVO V60 POLESTAR

The newer V60 is far from boxy.

Engine type: 3.0L six-cylinder inline, 24-valve, front transverse, petrol twin-scroll turbo

Transmission: Six-speed, Adaptive Geartronic

Max power: 258kW (350bhp) at 5250rpm

Max torque: 500Nm at 3000 to 4750 rpm

Max rpm: 6500

Acceleration: 0–100 km/h 5.0 secs

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel consumption: 10.3 litres/100km (mixed cycle)

Fuel tank: 67.5 litres

Weight: 1834kg

VITAL STATS

1997 VOLVO 850R SPORTSWAGON

The 850R looks good and goes hard.

Production run: 6000 (est)

Body: Steel monocoque

Engine: 2319cc, turbocharged, fuel-injected, DOHC 5-cylinder

Power: 185kW at 5400rpm

Torque: 350Nm at 2400rpm

Performance:

0-100km/h: 6.7 seconds

0-400m: 15.1 seconds

Gearbox: 5-speed manual

Suspension: Independent, struts, coils, anti-roll bar (f); Delta-link, coils, anti-roll bar (r)

Brakes: 280mm ventilated discs (f); 290mm discs (r)

Wheels: Alloy, 7J X 17 inch

Tyres: 205/45 ZR17

You’re racing a what?

Part of the mystique surrounding these hot haulers is that they were actually raced as tin-tops back in the day. Yep, as unlikely as that sounds, five-door Volvos were raced both in Europe and even closer to home.

Image: Volvo

Remember the hooly-dooly days of the British Touring Car Championship where severely lowered and stiffened Mondeos were taking on Vauxhalls, Audis, BMWs and every other type of sales-rep car? Well, in 1994, into that mix, Tom Walkinshaw’s TWR lobbed a big, boxy hand-grenade in the form of the 850 Wagon touring car. To say this shook things up a bit is a major understatement.

The Volvo wagon did okay in Britain, with a third-on-the-grid and a fifth place in one race, but soon the rules were changed and TWR switched to the 850 sedan as a result. But the legend had been born.

In Australia, the 1995 Super Touring Championship was graced by the inclusion of an 850 wagon. Driven by Tony Scott, the move was a marketing master stroke and even led to the brand employing no lesser drivers than Peter Brock and Jim Richards for subsequent years even though (like in the BTCC) the wagon was swapped out for a sedan.

Image: Volvo

Even if you accept the initial choice of the wagon over the sedan was mainly about marketing, there’s also a theory that the wagon’s long, flat roof actually made a fraction more downforce than the sedan. There’s also a rumour that when the engineers went to Volvo to pick up the car that became the first 850 race-car, the factory was all out of sedans and only had a wagon to hand over. I kind of hope that last bit is true. It’s certainly no less likely than a racing Volvo station-wagon.

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